Ansar Abbasi, wannabe political advisor, gives himself away

Ansar Abbasi is at it again with a front page column in The News (Jang Group) that offers little more than Abbasi’s personal frustration that PTI and PML-N are not joining forces against the present government. Having utterly ceased to even pretend to be a journalist, Ansar Abbasi is now fantasizing that he is political advisor to Imran Khan and Nawaz Sharif. But in his advice to the opposition leaders, Ansar gives himself away.

Abbasi’s would-be political advice is especially humorous given Imran’s recent successes drawing crowds exceeding 100,000 to his jalsa in Lahore and showing legitimate growth in his party’s support since disappointing showings in past elections. Nevermind the facts, Ansar Abbasi is angry that “PTI leaders are more interested in the alleged corruption cases of Nawaz Sharif”. Abbasi is further enraged that “Imran Khan and his party did not issue any statement in support of the Supreme Court” despite the fact that later in the column he even admits that “The PTI’s spokesman Umar Cheema instead said that it was the PTI that had demanded in the very beginning to establish a commission under the Supreme Court to probe the matter”.

Meanwhile, Ansar Abbasi is also angry at Nawaz Sharif and his PML-N for focusing on allegations that “Khan’s siblings and other relatives are drawing heavy salaries from donations” to Shaukat Khanum and questions about “a residential plot allotted to the PTI chief by the then chief minister and incumbent PML-N chief on the former’s request”.

It seems that Ansar Abbasi is proposing his own NRO in which all allegations against political leaders should be set aside so long as they agree to attack the government. To begin, Ansar Abbasi would have Imran Khan and Nawaz Sharif stop questioning each other and instead take the strategy of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, even though both political leaders appear to know better what they are doing than Ansar Abbasi. More to the point, it appears that Ansar Abbasi is not actually interested in the success of either PTI or PML-N, but simply takes the position of “the enemy of the government is my friend”. Obviously, this raises serious concerns both about Ansar Abbasi’s ability to provide objective, fact-based reporting and analysis and also whether Jang Group is pursuing a political agenda in giving someone like Ansar Abbasi front page coverage to air his personal opinions.

Ansar Abbassi is a rabid extremist and is a surprise that he is allowed to write for The News. He supported the beating of that young girl by the Taliban in Swat and has continuously taken the sides of the Taliban against the moderate forces in Pakistan.